An anonymous reader writes: Speaking of dihydrogen monoxide... Scientific misconduct has — deservedly — gotten a lot of bad press lately. But in a very funny piece over at Science Careers (published by the journal Science), scientist-comedian Adam Ruben suggests that a lot of good can come from a well-intentioned hoax. "Hoaxes have infiltrated science for centuries," Ruben writes, "from fake fossils (Piltdown Man, archaeoraptor, Calaveras skull) to fake medical conditions (cello scrotum, the disappearing blonde gene) to fake animals (Ompax spatuloides, Pacific Northwest tree octopus, Labradoodle)." In contrast to fraud, Ruben argues, such hoaxes do a great service to science by illustrating "failures of our most important tool: our skepticism."

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